Hasim Rahman is one of those boxing stories that just don’t occur that often. In other sports they are as rare as honest politicians or ninety yard field goals. Imagine the scenario average contender gets lucky shot at superstar champ. Superstar champ’s ego gets out of control he disrespects his opponent and doesn’t train hard enough. During the fight he takes it easy smiles a lot, knows that his opponent is no threat. The challenger on the other hand trains hard and comes in seeking a victory. Suddenly mid fight the champ starts mugging for the cameras and leaves his guard down. The determined challenger ignores the script steps in and tags the superstar on the chin. The referee counts and the underdog is champ.
Before meeting Lennox Lewis in April 2001 Rahman was a fringe contender who had been stopped in two of his previous attempts to move into the world class against David Tua and Oleg Maskaev. In May 2000 he got his first big break when he stopped South African contender Corrie Sanders in seven rounds to win something called the WBU Heavyweight title. Lewis gave him a title shot and most experts predicted an easy win for Lewis. The rest of course is history.
Post fight Rahman got a little carried away and started to believe the publicity. The rematch in November 2001 was a different affair Lewis turned up ready to fight and stopped Rahman in four rounds. Post fight Rahman’s reputation yo-yoed back to zero.
Since losing to Lewis his career looked as if it was heading downhill. In June 2002 he lost on an eight round technical decision to Evander Holyfield, followed by a ten round draw with David Tua in March 2003 and a points defeat to John Ruiz for the WBA title. Since then things have improved, Hasim has put together a six fight winning run against average opposition. He is now scheduled for a shot against Vitalyi Klitschko for the WBC title in November 2005.
As Hasim is still active it is difficult to make an assessment of his standing in the heavyweight world. At present it would be safe to say he was one of the poorer champs. Other than Lewis and Sanders he has never beaten any other name opponents.
It is interesting to note that at 6’2” and 235lbs he was physically larger than some of the toughest champs such as Sonny Liston and even the young George Foreman. Proof possibly that size really doesn’t matter when you are talking about heavyweights.